UConn Men's Basketball: Huskies playing 'team' basketball

MATT STOUT

Tuesday

Jan 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMJan 29, 2008 at 3:53 AM

HARTFORD — The UConn men’s basketball team is not whole. Two of their top players still on indefinite suspension, the Huskies are also fatigued, drained by two emotional wins played with a short bench. They’ve simultaneously fought off cramps and late runs.

HARTFORD — The UConn men’s basketball team is not whole. Two of their top players still on indefinite suspension, the Huskies are also fatigued, drained by two emotional wins played with a short bench. They’ve simultaneously fought off cramps and late runs.

They’re also still unbeaten since sophomores Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins, both 20, were caught with alcohol by UConn police late Thursday night and suspended by coach Jim Calhoun. The victories mean UConn’s not getting much sympathy either.

“They’ve got a full roster compared to us,” said Louisville coach Rick Pitino, who’s had the majority of his frontcourt players either sidelined or suspended at different points this season.

UConn is still playing like it’s fully-loaded, though, and the players point to one reason: Minus two of their own, the Huskies are still a team, and they may be playing more like one as a result.

“We’re playing extremely good team basketball,” said A.J. Price, who played all but one minute of the Huskies’ 69-67 win over the Cardinals Monday. “Everybody’s sharing the ball, everybody’s moving the ball, and I think truly that’s the biggest thing that’s happened to our offense.

“We know we’re undermanned, everybody knows that,” the junior guard later added. “So we pulled together, we had a meeting as a team saying that we need to be tighter than ever at this point.”

The Huskies (15-5, 5-3 Big East) feel they are. On the court, they’ve moved the ball well, especially Monday when Louisville threw full-court pressure and half-court zones at them all night. Yet, they committed just 11 turnovers (compared to 12 assists) and shot 52 percent from the floor in the second half.

Defensively, they’ve also gone to more zone. One of the primary reasons was to conserve energy, and the system has had its drawbacks (53 combined 3-point attempts from Louisville and Indiana the last two games). But whether opponents shot well (Indiana: 55 percent from 3) or poorly (Louisville: 33.3), it’s forced the Huskies to move as a group, not as individuals — the exact mindset they’ve taken in the locker room.

“It doesn’t matter how many games you have, what days off,” Robinson said, “as long as you come out and give it your all. This team, we have a big heart. That should take care of the rest.”

For the time being, it has. But No. 18 Pittsburgh visits on Saturday and nine more Big East games follow.

Reminded by associate coach George Blaney during the post-game press conference Monday, Calhoun also pointed out that the conference has 10 teams among the top 52 in RPI rankings, the most of any league. That means exhaustive experiences like Monday’s (all five starters played 26 or more minutes) could begin to take their toll.

“Where it hurts you is longevity over the span of time,” Pitino said of the suspensions.

But as proud as Calhoun is in the play of his whole team, the coach feels he has a trump card in Price especially. He told the junior that he’d have to play 40 minutes Monday – “He played 39, so I lied to him” — and like other great leaders the program has, there’s a sense Price has taken ownership of the Huskies.

“You’ve seen his manhood start to develop and take responsibility for this team,” Calhoun said. “That’s pretty special to me.”

That’s not even counting his play on the court. In league play, he’s been the team’s best outside threat (13 3s), it’s top scorer (16.6 points per game) and overall, no Husky has played more minutes than him this season (31.8 per game), save for junior Jeff Adrien, who’s matched him.

When speaking to reporters Monday, Calhoun blasted the media for their pursuit of information surrounding Dyson and Wiggins’ suspensions. In speaking of his team, he continued, saying, “Nothing that you (the media) can do or anybody else can do can take away from what our kids did the last 48 hours.” And it continued still when speaking of Price’s impact.

“People wrote things about A.J. in the past when he almost died and you were all incredibly sympathetic and I always appreciated that, (and) you were right,” he said. “When you wrote, when he self-inflicted himself (when he was suspended for legal matters), you were right. And now you should be writing, not about any transgressions, but how terrific of a basketball player he’s become.”

No one may better understand the situation Dyson and Wiggins are in, either.

“Everybody makes mistakes,” Price said. “I came in here and made a mistake my freshman year so I know first-hand how it can be. You make mistakes and you gotta live and you learn from them. Hopefully these guys can man-up and just grow up from it and accept the responsibility.”

On the court, the Huskies have done exactly that in playing without them. Whether they’ll have to continue to, may be made clearer in the following days as results from drug tests Wiggins and Dyson reportedly took are expected in. The team is prepared either way.

“We’re coming together,” Robinson said. “We’ll make the best of it soon.”

Reach Matt Stout at 425-4250 or mstout@norwichbulletin.com

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